Okay.
Here is a thread about why #Kavanaugh most likely doesn’t remember what happened with Dr. Ford, and why the #MeToo movement will make sure this never happens again.
It’s 1985 and a friend of mine has just secured a job as a receptionist/bookkeeper position at a small family owned law firm. The father is the head of the firm. He has two sons who work for him.
She’s just out of college and thrilled to have her first job. She doesn’t ask why the receptionist/bookkeeper before her left. She knows it’s a starting position and just assumes the previous person moved on.
She later learns that the receptionist before her had an “affair”with one of the sons. Since the son was married, the receptionist was fired.
The receptionist before that girl, quit unexpectedly without giving any notice. She left early and never came back.
A receptionist/bookkeeper job doesn’t pay very well, so my friend brings her lunch with her and eats in the conference room. The younger of the two brothers will stop in to chat. He asks her what she & her friends are doing for the weekend.
She stops telling him when he starts showing up at the clubs where she and her friends are hanging out.
When she goes into the supply closet to take inventory - he sometimes comes in to grab a cup of coffee and accidentally/on purpose brushes up against her.
It comes to a head Christmas Eve. He has purchased gerbils for his kids (YES - HE IS MARRIED!!!!) He has lots of presents and needs help carrying things down to his car. He tells her he needs her help. It is the end of the day.
She has no choice but to help him.
He is her boss.
He gives her the gerbil cage.
When they get to the floor in the parking garage where his corvette (yes - he is a walking stereotype) is parked - he asks her to put the gerbil cage on the floor of his car.
She needs to bend all the way over to do this.
When she stands up, he grabs her breasts with both his hands and whispers “Merry Christmas” into her neck.
She turns.
And pushes him away with both her hands.
She is very tiny and he is much larger, but it catches him by surprise.
She shouts “MERRY CHRISTMAS” in his face - a statement that to this day that still makes her blush.
She runs back to the elevators in her heels.
When she gets back to the office, she cries at her desk and types up a letter of resignation.
She doesn’t have another job.
She takes the letter into his father and says she won’t be back.
She looks down and notices her blouse is ripped.
His father notices it too.
He sees she’s been crying.
He asks if she has another job.
She shakes her head and says she can’t work there anymore.
He knows what his son did.
This is the third receptionist they have lost because his son can’t keep his hands to himself.
33 years later this woman ran into the man who grabbed her breasts in a parking garage on Christmas Eve.
He’s at the graduation party of one of her friends children.
They are both guests.
He is there with his third wife.
He says “Hi. Don’t I know you?”
It is at that moment she realizes he does not remember her.
He most likely does not remember what he did to her that Christmas Eve.
He probably felt he was just “Making a pass.” And she had “over-reacted.”
If questioned - he would be hard pressed to remember why she quit.
But it haunts my friend.
It changed how she acted with her future bosses.
How she dressed.
Where she went.
And she’s not alone.
I have another friend who worked in the retail industry in a clothing store.
One night, the male manager offered to help her lock up.
The alarm system was in the back.
After the alarm was set, you needed to walk through the store - out the door and lock it.
They went in the back room. She went to set the alarm.
“Hey - Mary - look at this!” He said to her.
She turned around.
He had his pants down around his ankles and was showing her his erection.
She was 16. It was her first job.
She set the alarm, ran through the store, and locked the door. She left him there with his pants around his ankles.
She never told anyone what happened.
She never collected her last paycheck.
She set the alarm, shoved past him, ran through the store and locked the door. She left him there with his pants around his ankles.
She saw him at her church last week. He shook her hand during the “Peace be with You” and never said a word. She didn’t think he remembered who she was.
Do I believe Brett #Kavanaugh doesn’t remember Dr. Ford or what happened that night?
Yes I do.
Why? Because it was just another Friday night for him.
He will be confirmed.
But maybe something greater will come from this.
Maybe men will think about what they do to women.
Maybe men will think - maybe she doesn’t want a “dick pic” sent to her, or me to grab her.
Maybe they will consider that they are: older, her boss, drunk, a stranger, a customer, a family friend.
Maybe they should talk to her like someone they respected and valued.
Why I think #Kavanaugh is lying: 1. Dr. Ford's sessions with a therapist where she named him and the boys with him happened six years ago.
2. Brett Kavanaugh's calendar proves he went to parties with Mark Judge and P.J. - Dr. Ford named these two men BEFORE his calendar was made public. If she didn't "hang in the same circles" as Brett Kavanaugh, how would she know this?
3. Brett Kavanaugh testified that he and Dr. Ford (Christine Blasey - a 15 year old teenager - at the time) did not "travel in the same social circles."
He was friends with young women from similar backgrounds. Who attended private, Catholic girls schools.
This is a thread about how institutional racism works.
In the 1950’s SUNY schools & community colleges offered FREE tuition to local students. My mother-in-law, who is white, took advantage of this program and received her degree from SUNY Buffalo in Speech Therapy.
When my father graduated from high school, he was not told of the opportunity for free tuition because black students were routinely not informed of the opportunity for a free college education.
My father always had a talent for repairing electrical appliances. Radios, televisions, refrigerators - anything that was powered by electricity, he could fix it.
He also had a head for math . He heard the military might be a good place to earn a degree and gain job experience.